British Broadcasting Corporation Gaza Film Ruled a 'Serious' Violation of Media Standards, Declares Broadcasting Watchdog
The BBC engaged in a "major breach" of industry standards by not revealing that the narrator of a film about the Gaza conflict was the son of a Hamas official, as ruled by regulatory body Ofcom.
An inquiry by the media regulator into the documentary titled Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has found that the programme was "substantially inaccurate".
The head of the BBC had already issued an apology, saying there had been "a serious error in relation to accuracy".
The regulator has instructed the corporation to broadcast a prime-time declaration about its decisions.
"Given this constitutes a significant violation of our rules, we are ordering the broadcaster to broadcast a announcement of our conclusions against it on BBC Two at 9pm, with a timing to be confirmed," it said.
'Possibility to Undermine Confidence'
The watchdog's report stated: "The inquiry we conducted determined that the documentary's failure to disclose that the voice's parent served in a post in the Hamas-administered administration was materially misleading.
"Consequently that the public did not have essential details which may have been very significant to their judgment of the voice and the content he shared.
"Confidence is at the heart of the connection between a broadcaster and its public, particularly for a public service broadcaster such as the BBC.
"This error had the risk to undermine the significantly high levels of credibility that the public would have invested in a documentary produced by the BBC about the Israel-Gaza war."
The film was pulled from the BBC's streaming service in last February after the narrator's family links were revealed, and in the month of July an broadcaster's internal assessment determined it infringed the broadcaster's journalistic standards on truthfulness.
A representative for the broadcaster commented: "The authority's determination is in agreement with the results of the internal assessment, that there was a significant failing in the film in relation to the broadcaster's journalistic policies on factual correctness, which reflects clause 2.2 of the authority's broadcasting regulations.
"We expressed regret for this and we accept Ofcom's decision in complete. We will adhere to the directive as soon as the schedule and wording are confirmed."
